The clergy group did not shy away from Brown’s role as the suspect in a theft, instead acknowledging problems with crime that face black communities and using it as an opportunity to push its main message that more black parents and guardians should raise their children with the added support of the church.

"Arguing that the traditional Jewish day-school model they grew up with is outmoded and too clannish for 21st-century Judaism, a new generation of parents and educators are flocking to Montessori preschools and elementary schools that combine secular studies with Torah and Hebrew lessons."

But the court held that the district’s orders that he put away the personal Bible he kept on his desk violated his First Amendment rights of freedom of religion and therefore would not have been sufficient cause to fire him. (The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Oh.)

Young adults who entered college for the first time last fall as full-time students are distancing themselves from the church—and the mosque, synagogue and meeting house, for that matter. Almost 28% of respondents said they had no religious preference, compared with 24.6% last year and 17.5% a decade earlier.

Omid Safi, director of Duke’s Islamic Studies Center, said Thursday evening that the call to prayer was scaled back because of “a number of credible threats against Muslim students, faculty and staff.” The school, he said “is treating this as a criminal matter” and that the threats are “external.”

Grief at a botched retouching of a church fresco has turned to gratitude for divine intervention — the blessing of free publicity — that has made Borja, Spain, a magnet for thousands of curious tourists. (The New York Times)

Post-Seculars — about half of whom identify as conservative Protestants — know facts such as how lasers work, what antibiotics do and the way genetics affects inherited illnesses. But when it comes to three main areas where science and Christian-centric religious views conflict — on human evolution, the Big Bang origin of the universe and the age of the Earth — Post-Seculars break away from the pack with significantly different views from Traditionals and Moderns.

Post-Seculars — about half of whom identify as conservative Protestants — know facts such as how lasers work, what antibiotics do and the way genetics affects inherited illnesses. But when it comes to three main areas where science and Christian-centric religious views conflict — on human evolution, the Big Bang origin of the universe and the age of the Earth — Post-Seculars break away from the pack with significantly different views from Traditionals and Moderns.

According to a new report by Calvin College assistant professor Jonathan Hill, many Americans do not think it's that important to have the "correct beliefs" on the origins of human life. His research was funded by the BioLogos Foundation, a pro-evolution, Christian organization founded by National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins. "It’s important to know that a large portion of the population is unsure about their beliefs, and there is a large portion of the population that doesn’t care," Hill said in an interview.

Eleven states do not require families to register with any school district or state agency that they are teaching their children at home, according to the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, a nonprofit group that is pushing for more accountability in home schooling. Fourteen states do not specify any subjects that families must teach, and only nine states require that parents have at least a high school diploma or equivalent in order to teach their children. In half the states, children who are taught at home never have to take a standardized test or be subject to any sort of formal outside assessment.